The Company We Keep
by mysticxf
Summary: Jack thinks about who he'd be friends with off the island.


Lost belongs to the people at ABC and its creators and stuff. I'm borrowing because I'm a procrastinator about writing my own stuff. Jack thinks about who he'd be friends with off the island. Enjoy.

* * *

Lost - The Company We Keep  
By Mystic  
March 24th 2005

* * *

Jack brushed his hands along the sand at his sides and stared out at the ocean. It wasn't too hard to get lost in a daydream on the island. All you had to do was try. Just a little bit. He could see himself back at home, in a hospital, next to a crew of nurses with an open spine in front of him. There would be blood and he'd call for suction. He'd sweat and someone would mop his head. The names of instruments popped in his mind and made him smile.

There was a comfort in the norm. He couldn't find that on the island. Nothing on the island was normal. Not even things that should be, like his feelings. At home he knew what he liked, what he disliked, who he wanted to associate with and who he never wanted to see again. His eyes scan the horizon thinking of the people he'd met on this island that he would never have been seen with otherwise. Back home a girl like Shannon would have gotten his attention. She was a beautiful girl, long legs and a sweet smile. But the shallowness he'd have found when she spoke to him made Jack frown.

Back home a man like Sayid would have made him look away uncomfortable-like. He was branded by what a handful of his race had done years ago. Jack wouldn't have lump-summed him, but to avoid staring, he'd simply look away. The boys in the school yard of his childhood grew into men like Sawyer. The cockiness would garner them eye rolls and shrugs and Jack would brush by them on the street with anger in his eyes and a thankful heart. Their meanness made him the determined man who never failed at anything he set out to do.

Boone's naivety would have made him a younger brother. Jack knew guys like him in medical school. So unsure of their place in life that they struggled with everything because instead of accomplishing what they could, they set out to impress everyone and failed. Michael and Walt, like Sun and Jin, came from different worlds and he knew the prejudice growing up in a white world gave him would have prevented him from seeing the good people they were.

Fear is the only word Jack thought to describe what his pre-island feelings toward Locke would have been. The man swore he worked for a box company, but the knowledge he seemed to have on hunting would have kept Jack from every becoming friends with him in a civilized society. Claire would have repulsed him. Her bubbly positive outlook wasn't one he'd have shared off the island. And the baby. Jack had always been afraid of pregnant women. He couldn't understand it, he guessed it was an irrational fear most bachelor's had.

Charlie would have annoyed him. His constant chattering would have been a distraction he didn't welcome. Jack knew Drive Shaft's music, he switched the station. Oppositely, Hurley might have been his good friend. He was the kind of outcast with just enough spark to keep you tuned in, and snark to make you laugh. Jack could see them enjoying a ballgame together on a Saturday evening with chips and beers.

His mind drifted a moment before finding Kate. His vision blurred and he wondered.

"Hey, you're in my spot." It was her voice. Soft, and curious, with just a hint of laughter to cover the curiosity over.

Jack refused to look up at her, he acknowledged her with a half grin and continued to stare out at the ocean. He wasn't sure what he'd have felt back home. If she'd passed him on the street she would have looked at him, because she was observant. If she caught his eye, he would have flustered. But he wasn't sure. He knew she was devious, he knew she was on the run from something, but he knew she was capable of love. He believed her when she cried for the man she killed because Jack believed whoever that man, he was the man she loved.

The sand next to him crunched under her weight as she sat down. "Water for your thoughts," she told him gently, touching his shoulder with a bottle full of fresh water.

"Just thinking."

"About?" She questioned, but he heard the uncertainty there. He'd never heard it before. The wondering if he'd tell her.

Jack chanced a glance at her. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and the wind whipped it about. She was wearing the orange shirt he didn't particularly like. Her skin had a tint of red to it and he knew she'd been recently up a tree. "Home."

Kate nodded slowly, but didn't take her vision off him. "They tell me you've been sitting out here for hours."

"You do it all the time. "

She smiled. "Yeah, but for me, it's normal."

Jack huffed a laugh and lowered his head, wrapping his arms around his knees. Kate undid the shoelaces of her boots and pulled them off with a grimace. She set them down beside her and then dug her bare toes into the cool moist sand. She released a sigh that made him look over.

"Is it getting you anywhere?" She asked, sounding distant.

"What?" Jack replied.

Kate shrugged, glancing down at her calves. "Thinking about home."

Shaking his head, Jack looked at her feet. They were rubbed raw and in one spot he could see blood just under the surface of the skin. He wondered why she pushed so hard.

"You think you'd have been friends with anyone on the island before you crashed here?"

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. "This pre-Wanted poster?"

Jack shrugged. "Yeah."

Taking a deep breath, Kate stared out at the ocean a moment, thinking. "Locke maybe. He reminds of my dad's buddies. The ones he went out for drinks with after a long day." There was a sadness he didn't question and she didn't let it linger long. "Sayid reminds me of the guys on the base. They way he's always on some mission." She smiled bashfully and he imagined her sitting on her front porch watching Army guys marching past her home.

"What about me?"

"If my spine needed surgery..." she trailed.

Jack shook his head. "If I ran into you on the street."

Kate's eyebrows furrowed and she seemed to really be thinking about it. Jack wondered what she was thinking about. Was she rolling situations around in her head? She looked over at him. "Yeah. If the circumstances were right."

"You mean, no Wanted poster." Jack smiled.

She frowned.

"Sorry," he muttered, looking away again.

Kate watched the sun closing in on the horizon and she stared as the blue sky turned pinkish and orange. She'd seen too many sunsets on the island. "What about you?"

"I think Hurley's the only person I could see myself really being friends with."

He watched the way her eyes flinched.

"I meant, besides you." Jack added with a grin.

But it didn't change the pain there. "Don't lie to me, Jack."

He leaned forward and removed her feet from the sand and pulled them around into his lap. Kate let out a shriek as she slid in a circle and was now aligned with the sunset. Jack touched her left ankle gently, examining her. He rubbed the heel of each foot with his fingers and she groaned in pain when he pushed into a sore muscle. Kate pulled her left foot away when he pressed into the ankle again. Jack put out a hand and stared at her.

"It hurts," she told him squarely.

Jack waited until she laid her bare heel back in his hand. He put her legs down over his lap and dusted sand off her toes. He looked up and found her watching him, curiously. "I know."

The comment seemed to take her by surprise. She smirked nervously and leaned back on her palms.

"You sprained your ankle. When." Jack watched the sky turn blood red.

She shrugged. "This morning. I was hiking."

He nodded his head. "You should be more careful." Jack touched the left ankle that was slightly swollen and growing larger every minute it was out of the boot. "This is bad."

Kate nodded. She watched as he pressed into her foot again, shouting and jerking away when it stung, but she gave it back to him when he held out his hand. Jack understood she trusted him and he wondered if she trusted anyone else on the island. He watched the way she kept her distance even from the ones she claimed to be friends with.

"Wonder what our first date would have been like."

A smile spread on her lips. "Planned, meticulously."

Jack laughed, then nodded. He held her foot in his hands and lowered his head. "They say men are defined by the company they keep."

"You channeling Locke?" Kate half-whispered.

He shrugged. "Just curious, the only person on the island I want to spend time with is you."

"Wondering what that means about you?" Her right eyebrow went up curiously. "I think it means you're a better judge of character than anyone I've met recently." Her voice left her and she pulled her feet away, swinging herself around again and laying them back on the cool sand. Closing her eyes, she listened to the ocean waves and the breezes through the trees.

Jack watched her. There was a look of concentration on her face and it made him stare out at the ocean, looking for what comfort she found there. Jack resisted the urge to put an arm around her when she shivered and he leaned back on his palms, watching the sunset and the stars rise with Kate at his side.

* * *

Finis 


End file.
